“I love Rachmaninoff,” she said in a telephone interview. Ellie, a piano student who volunteers at the society along with her mother, Robin Horn, is a freshman at Harborfields High School in Greenlawn. Two other volunteers at the party told her that the Russian-born composer and pianist spent two summers in Centerport, a hamlet in the Town of Huntington not far from her own home, and that there was once a sign telling people so.

“I look out over the same harbor he did when I play,” Ellie said, referring to Northport Harbor.

Rachmaninoff spent the summers of 1940 and 1941 at the former Honeyman Estate, where he wrote “Symphonic Dances,” his last major orchestral composition before his death, in 1943. Wendy Cornell, who grew up nearby, and her husband, Mikhail Levin, told the story to Ellie, who decided she would raise money to get the sign restored. She took the idea to her piano teacher, Isabella Eredita Johnson, who founded the popular Opera Night in Northport series.

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1942 Sergei Rachmaninoff and his granddaughter Sophie Wolkonsky in Huntington.

“I knew the story about Rachmaninoff,” Ms. Eredita Johnson said, because her own childhood piano teacher, Gladys Fanton, had told her the composer would sometimes drive his cabin cruiser to the home of the Northport harbormaster and play for small groups. Ms. Eredita Johnson suggested to Ellie that they stage a benefit concert.

Rachmaninoff, then 67, came to Centerport partly to be near a relative who worked at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, according to “Music Over the Sound: Rachmaninoff in Centerport,” a booklet by Julia Pane published by the Greenlawn-Centerport Historical Association in 1982. The Honeyman Estate, a 17-acre property, included a swimming pool and grounds where the composer and his wife, Natalia, took long walks. He spent many hours at the piano, Ms. Pane wrote, and boaters often anchored in the harbor to listen.

Ms. Eredita Johnson is organizing the concert, to be held on Sept. 25 with at least 10 pianists, a violinist and one or two vocalists, each performing a short work by Rachmaninoff — but not “Symphonic Dances,” which is too long and difficult, she said. The musicians, from New York City and Long Island, are volunteering their time, though Ms. Eredita Johnson hopes proceeds will cover their expenses. “Rachmaninoff is our king,” she said. “This is an opportunity to honor him.”

The town’s historian, Robert Hughes, said the first sign proclaiming the Rachmaninoff connection disappeared many years ago, and “its fate is a mystery.” Using the proceeds from the benefit, the town plans to install a blue and gold aluminum marker, costing $850, near the entrance to Centerport Beach on Little Neck Road about a half-mile south of the former estate, now an area of private homes.